Cremation is a growing segment of the funeral industry. Consequently, there is an increasing demand for more and higher quality styles and designs of cremation urns.
One popular design for cremation urns is the outdoor/animal scene theme. Four such designs are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. Des. 356,421, 370,767, 370,766 and 370,768, all of which are assigned to the assignee of the present invention and hereby incorporated by reference herein as if fully set forth in their entirety.
Such cremation urn designs may include rather delicate features and the like which could be subject to damage and/or breakage during handling thereof. It would therefore be desirable to provide a means of protecting such delicate features of a cremation urn yet without obstructing the view thereof.
Further, in the case of U.S. Pat. Nos. Des. 356,421 and 370,767, which include dolphins suspended above rock and/or coral as if swimming in water, it would be desirable to more closely simulate the water in which the dolphins or other aquatic animals are swimming.
As a solution to this problem, a cremation urn of the type disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/733,882 and U.S. Design patent application Ser. No. 29/078,073 was devised. Both of these applications are assigned to the assignee of the present invention and are hereby incorporated by reference herein as if fully set forth in their entirety.
In these applications, an acrylic cremation urn is disclosed including first and second masses. The second mass is contained within the first mass. The second mass includes an opening and a cavity within the second mass for receiving cremated remains. At least a portion of the first mass is transparent so as to permit viewing of at least a portion of the second mass through the transparent portion of the first mass. A cover is closable over the opening to retain the cremated remains within the cavity.
In a preferred form of this cremation urn, the second mass is opaque and may include a decorative configuration and/or surface ornamentation which is viewable through the transparent portion of the first mass. The second mass may take one of many decorative forms, for example, an aquatic form such as that of a submerged land mass or corral mass. The second mass may further include swimming aquatic animals suspended thereover, for example, dolphins. The first mass may further preferably include a textured surface which is translucent and at least one transparent window through which the portion of the second mass is viewable. In a preferred form, the second mass may include a front window, a back window, a pair of side windows and at least one top window in which the portion of the second mass may be viewed.
As will be appreciated upon reviewing the disclosures of these two applications, the combination of the first transparent or translucent mass and the second opaque mass results in a much smaller cavity or volume available within the cremation urn for receiving cremation remains of a deceased. In fact, only a portion of the cremated remains of a deceased can ordinarily be contained in such a cremation urn due to that small cavity or volume (and otherwise due to restricting the overall size of the cremation urn to a managable size). The interior volume of the urn of Application Serial Nos. 08/733,882 and 29/078,073 is approximately 10-15 cubic inches, whereas an average sized deceased yields approximately 200 cubic inches of cremation remains.
The growing cremation segment of the funeral industry has also driven the demand for cremation urns which closely resemble and in fact are themselves fine art sculptures. A popular construction material for fine art sculptures is acrylic. One such fine art acrylic cremation urn sculpture is disclosed in U.S. Design patent application Ser. No. 29/077,523, assigned to the assignee of the present invention and hereby incorporated by reference herein as if fully set forth in its entirety. The transparent acrylic provides a number of ornamentally attractive qualities, in that one can see through the transparent portion to an inner, decorative opaque portion of the sculpture, and impressions or designs may be incorporated into the exterior surfaces of the transparent acrylic which are viewable at any point around a 360.degree. viewing area of the sculpture. As will be appreciated upon reviewing the disclosure of this application, the transparent portion of the urn is by far the majority of the mass of the urn; to maintain the cremation urn at a manageable size, the cavity or volume within the opaque portion of the urn available for storage of cremation remains is too small to store the entire remains of a deceased therein. The interior volume of the larger urn of application Ser. No. 29/077,523 is approximately 30-40 cubic inches.
Sculptures have for some time been displayed in various ways. One method of displaying fine art sculptures involves the use of a display pedestal upon which the sculpture is perched. Such prior art sculpture display pedestals may include a turntable mounted at an upper end thereof upon which the sculpture is supported, which turntable is rotated by an electric motor to facilitate viewing of the sculpture as it rotates. Such prior art display pedestals are also known to include a light source therein for illuminating the sculpture, and in particular for illuminating transparent sculptures fabricated of, for example, acrylic.
Therefore, there is a need for an attractive cremation urn display pedestal which includes the ability for storing the excess amount of cremation remains of a deceased which is not able to fit within a cremation urn of limited volume, and preferably which stores the excess remains in close proximity to, or in association with, the displayed cremation urn.